Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Dream Me by Kathryn Berla ~ Excerpt and Giveaway

Zat is a dreamer from the distant future—a time when humans no longer dream and Earth is a desolate wasteland. He dreams of the beautiful Earth of the past, and a fiery-haired beauty named Babe. Against the wisdom of his peers, Zat decides to risk everything to travel back in time and live in Babe’s dreams…
Babe is the perpetual new girl in town. Her father’s job frequently moves the family around the country, and Babe just longs for a place to call home. As she settles into the sleepy town of Sugar Dunes, Florida, Babe begins to have strange dreams of a green-eyed boy named Zat. Night after night, Babe shows Zat her world. But the dreams come at the cost of nearly crippling migraines every morning. Babe’s life outside of her dreams pales in comparison to her growing love for Zat and their time spent together.
But the more time Babe and Zat spend together in her dreams, the more Babe’s pain increases, and Zat begins to question the reality of his existence. How can he live a life with Babe, when all they have is her dreams?
Can a dream become a reality?

Every house I’d ever lived in had been a version of the same basic plan. Enter in the front door. To your right are three bedrooms lined up in a row. Straight in front of you is a living/dining area. To the left is the kitchen. Bathrooms are sprinkled in.

There were minor differences. Sometimes the bedrooms were to the left and the kitchen to the right. And occasionally a family room extended from the dining room. But I pretty much always knew what the house would look like before I ever stepped foot inside.

We were always renters and this time was no different. When you can’t be sure how long your job will last, you can’t commit to buying a house. And even if we wanted to buy, my family was always short of cash. Money was even tighter since my parents tried to help my brothers out with some of their college costs, as much as they could.

“I tried to fix things up nice for you,” Dad said apologetically. “But there are a few problems that still need taking care of.”

I immediately knew what one of those problems was when I walked through the door. Fans were blowing air from every corner of every room and still it felt like I was soaking in a hot tub. A disturbingly moldy smell made me nauseous, like when you throw a wet towel in the dirty laundry hamper and then discover it a week later. Still wet and still dirty.

“We’re here now and I don’t start work until next week,” Mom said brightly. “We’ll get everything straightened out, won’t we Baby?” My mom calls me Baby. Waaah!

“Apart from the obvious air conditioner malfunction,” my dad went on, “I’m sorry to say I’m also having issues with the Wi-Fi and cable.”

“What kind of issues?” Air conditioning was one thing. Wi-Fi and cable was non-negotiable. But my dad was notoriously tech-ignorant so I didn’t immediately panic. I was pretty handy at tweaking routers and modems after so many moves.

“They claimed everything was set up but I can’t get anything to work. I called them and they put us back on the bottom of the waiting list. Next week.” My dad looked at me sheepishly. “Sorry.”

I felt bad for my dad. He never lost the optimism that each new move would be the final one. The one we’d fall in love with and the job would be permanent and secure and we’d never move again. He wanted us to believe it too, but I’d had too many letdowns to buy into that. A busted air conditioner with no Wi-Fi or cable wasn’t exactly a promising start to our latest move. But you couldn’t move around as much as we did and survive if you were a whiner. That much, at least, I’d learned.

So much for Skyping with Perry if I couldn’t fix it myself. I would’ve texted him but I’d already tried my cell phone and we were out of the service area. Just great. In the middle of a pine forest on a street named after a fish and I couldn’t even send a text.

“Good news though, honey. You have a job in the tennis shop. Booking courts and lessons, ringing up purchases. Should be fun.”

Okay, it was kind of good news because I needed the money and I liked to stay busy. Sitting around the house all day, communing with whatever nature was outside our door wasn’t exactly part of my plan. Mom would be working in the golf shop and this was the life we were used to. “When do I start?”

“Next week. You and Mom settle in first. The moving truck comes Thursday.”

Author Bio:
Kathryn Berla graduated from the University of California at Berkeley as an English major. She has lived in many different countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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